Today, the need for proper hygiene, in particular in the form of hand hygiene, is widely acknowledged. For this reason, public or commercial facilities such as washrooms in public buildings, offices, restaurants, airports, hospitals, shopping malls and so on are normally provided with dispensers for various consumable goods, for example paper towels, liquid soap and toilet paper. The purpose is of course to make such consumables easily available to the guests in the washrooms.
Consumables are normally stored in said dispensers, which for this purpose are fixedly located at suitable positions in the washroom. A dispenser can for example be in the form of a holder for paper towels, a holder for toilet paper or a container for liquid soap. Other types of dispensers, for example trash cans, are also used.
The task of checking the level of each consumable, and refilling a dispenser when necessary, i.e. when the level of the consumable is low, is normally assigned to a cleaning staff or a janitor. One problem for a janitor is to know which dispensers that need to be refilled and how much consumable material to bring when servicing an area containing a number of dispensers. Furthermore, from a management point of view, it can be difficult to know in advance how much consumable materials should be ordered and kept in stock. For these reasons, there is a need for dispensers which are arranged for monitoring the actual use of the consumable and for signalling in some suitable manner to a central service office or to a cleaning staff or janitor that, for example, a particular dispenser needs refilling. To this end, it is known that a modern dispenser may include one or more sensors which are arranged for detecting the level of the consumable within the dispenser. Generally, such sensors can be arranged for recognizing any condition indicating that the level of a consumable is low, i.e. by detecting that the level of the consumable is below a predetermined threshold value. The sensor in question can for example be based on an infrared sensor which is arranged for detecting when the height of a paper stack, such as a stack of paper towels in a dispenser, falls below a specified low paper threshold. This threshold corresponds to a condition in which the dispenser needs refilling.
There exist also solutions in which a dispenser is arranged for automatically dispensing a consumable. An example is an automatic soap dispenser which is arranged for automatically discharging a small amount of soap when a user holds a hand under an output nozzle of the dispenser. Such a dispenser can be arranged with sensor arrangements which keep track of the number of occasions that the nozzle has been actuated. The number of occasions can then be used for estimating the amount of consumable which has been fed from the dispenser, and consequently also the remaining amount. When a predetermined minimum threshold has been reached, the dispenser can send a signal to a central service office indicating that it needs refilling.
Other types of sensors can for example be based on a light emitting diode and a photodetector which together can be used for detecting the level of a consumable within a dispenser. A further example is a counter device counting the number of turns on a toilet paper dispenser, wherein the accumulated number of turns corresponds to a certain consumption of toilet paper. Yet another example of a sensor is a traffic counter sensor, i.e. a sensor for counting the number of patrons or users visiting the washroom. The number of visitors in a washroom during a given time period can then be used as an estimate of the level of consumables in dispensers.
As mentioned above, a sensor which is associated with a dispenser for a consumable can be connected to a central service office, i.e. to a central computer server, so that the server is notified when a particular dispenser needs refilling. A notification relating to a dispenser low condition can then be forwarded to members of a cleaning staff, who then has the responsibility of refilling that particular dispenser as soon as possible.
A system for monitoring hygiene applicances is previously known from the patent document US 2011/0163870, which teaches a wireless system for monitoring a number of dispensers. The system comprises a number of sensors which are connected to a hub, i.e. a data collecting unit. The hub is connected to a gateway which communicates, via a cellular network, with a remote server which is associated with a database.
A particular problem which is relevant with regard to a monitoring system of the above-mentioned type is that the system may involve a relatively large number of sensors and data collecting units. There will be a large amount of information to be forwarded to the central server, and there may be difficulties for management and cleaning staff to keep track of requirements for refilling dispensers in different areas or washrooms. There is also a need for the cleaning staff to have access to updated, easily available and clear information with directions defining their work rounds, i.e. which washrooms to visits and which dispensers to refill. The fact that cleaning staff and janitors are constantly moving around in various premises during their working day contributes to the difficulties in forwarding relevant information to them.
From a management point of view, there are difficulties in gaining information regarding how much consumables have been used during a given time period, which washrooms have been cleaned and which are left to clean etc. On a “top management” level, there are requirements for obtaining information as regards work planning and recruitment, i.e. for gaining knowledge for example on how much time it takes for a cleaning staff to clean a certain number of washrooms, including the time it takes for refilling and servicing dispensers of different types.